A New Evil Overlord
by aunt-rhiannon
Summary: The overly complicated plot to kill Harry in the fourth book annoyed me. So I found a simplier way to do it.


Disclaimer: Harry Potter and everything else belongs to J.K. Rowling. The title was inspired by the Evil Overlord List, which apparently Voldemort has never read.

She couldn't stand it anymore.

She had tried. All her life she had tried. She had believed her parents when they praised You-Know-Who. She had studied the Dark Arts. She had eagerly anticipated the time when she would be old enough, worthy enough, to become a Death Eater.

Her parents had died, killed by Aurors, but she had stayed strong, acting confused and grief-stricken for her aunt, studying and preparing in secret. Soon, she would take her parents' place.

Then it all fell apart, ruined by an infant. But she had stayed true, longing for Harry Potter's death and You-Know-Who's return to power.

No. Not You-Know-Who. Voldemort. Why should she be afraid to say his name? Be afraid of him? He was a joke. An incompetent fool surrounded by cowardly idiots.

One defeat she could forgive. Two defeats, even by the same person, the same child, she could accept, especially considering his weakness and the inadequacy of his servant. The third defeat had been harder to find excuses for, but she had rationalized that it was only the memory of his childhood self that had been defeated, not truly the Dark Lord. But this last defeat…

It wasn't the defeat itself. In a way, it had been a triumph. Voldemort had returned to power by using Potter; no doubt the boy would carry physical and emotional scars from the encounter for the rest of his life. And Voldemort had had no way of knowing Potter's wand was brother to his own.

It was the fact that Potter had been given a chance. An honorable, fair chance to save himself. And of course, since Potter was good and always won, he had proven the stronger and defeated Voldemort yet again. Potter should have been killed immediately, before he had a chance to do anything.

But it was worse than that. The whole stupid plan was flawed. All Voldemort need was a few drops of blood. It didn't even have to be fresh.

If she had been in charge, she'd have gone a simpler route. Caught him alone, put a binding spell on him, collected the blood, and left. It could have been done in a minute, even less. There were so many simple, easy ways to make people bleed.

Instead, Voldemort's trusted follower had captured a retired Auror and soon-to-be-teacher, kept him alive and unconscious in order to make Polyjuice Potion, and replaced him as a teacher at Hogwarts. Then he had earned Potter's trust, tricked the Goblet of Fire and entered Potter into the Triwizard Tournament, helped him win, enchanted the trophy to be a portkey, and then captured him for the spell, leaving him alive to witness the spell, hear Voldemort name his followers and explain how he had survived and what their plans were. Then Voldemort had _let the boy go_ and given him his wand so Voldemort could kill him in a traditional wizard duel! If Potter's presence was so important, couldn't they have just kidnapped him? Handed him a portkey shaped like a quill on the first day of school and skip the Tournament nonsense? They had only given him more knowledge, experience, friends, and fame than ever, which would make him even harder to defeat.

She was going to do it.

It's so simple, she thought, standing on the sidewalk in front of the boring muggle house with the grubby teen working in the garden, his back to her. It was a sweltering summer day, and the two of them were the only ones outside. She pulled out the gun as the dark haired boy stood up, wiping the sweat from his forehead. He didn't turn around.

She raised the gun. She had enchanted the weapon with a silencing spell and an accuracy charm. She pulled the trigger.

The boy jerked, blood and brain spattering against the white house and clean window, a dark hole in the shutter where the bullet lodged. He started to crumble to the ground, and she pulled the trigger again and again. Blood stained his hair and trickled down his back. Even the Boy Who Lived couldn't survive two gunshot wounds to the head and one to the heart. Looking at the lifeless, dirty, sweaty heap on the ground, crushing the flowers he had just tended, and the blood and gore decorating the once spotless house, she wondered what he looked like from the front. But she did not have the time to stay and find out.

She transfigured the gun into a rock and tossed it into the hedge separating this yard from the neighbor's, then heading to her nondescript rental car. Next she'd kill Voldemort and his Death Eaters. It was time for a new Dark Lord to come to power.


End file.
